Sunday, January 29, 2017

So, the Las Vegas Open is coming up fast...next weekend as a matter of fact...and the Dropfleet list building rules for the tournament were just released a week ago. At 1250 points, I needed a Dragon battleship, pronto.

They came into stock last week at Meeplemart, so I ordered mine and crossed my fingers it would get here on time for the convention. Got my shipping notice last Monday, and the model arrived on Friday. Built it Friday night (easy 16-piece kit), and here it is...Sunday afternoon and tabletop-ready.

In addition, to round out my list, I shoved in a 22-point Nickar corvette. Well, the kits aren't released yet, but tournament rules allow for kit-bashing...so I used a GW Screamer. Looks like a similar model, if a little on the big side, but I'm not going to complain. Models built and painted in time to get on the plane Thursday.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Rogue Stars from Osprey Wargames is a very new ruleset. As such, it's lacking a lot of material that would make it more gamer-friendly...including a Quick Reference Card for the game modifiers and Character Cards.

In lieu of a set of pre-made Character Cards, I made my own. These files were built in Apple's Pixelmator software.

My first set of characters for the game is a 200-point squad of Heavy-World Miners. I gave the squad "Hard to Kill" and armed most of them with shotguns (stats found on the group Facebook page). These guys were named after some of my favourite Raptor second-stringers.

The miners are led by Powell. Rogue Star characters have to be built between 30 and 70 points. Powell, at 46 has a pretty low cost for a leader...but that's the trade-off for having 5 guys in the squad. He's armed with a mining pick (Monowire Scythe), pistol and a small grenade.

Swag Daddy, second in command, checks in at 42 points. He has a shotgun and sword.

CoJo doubles as the squad's medic and chief technician.

Like all the shotguns in the squad, BeBe's is loaded with Dragon Breath rounds. They have a shortened range, but cause Scorch. That means when another model is hit, damage is automatically applied to the least armoured section of the target.

Caboclo rounds out the squad. Like BeBe, he has Chucker...which allows him greater accuracy when throwing his stun grenade.

OK, another game ready to go. Cards were printed an put in plastic sleeves to write on during gameplay.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

For the first project of 2017, I've decided to build some models for a ruleset I picked up over the holidays: Rogue Stars from Osprey.

Rogue Stars is a Sci-Fi skirmish game based around 3 to 6 figures that uses a mission/location/complication generator to create scenarios, which players can link into a campaign. In that sense, think of it as a scaled-down Necromunda.

For this first squad, I used some very nice multi-part models from Games Workshop.

They are built from the Neophyte Hybrids box for the recently released Genestealer Cults 40K line.

This week I also added to my growing collection of Dropzone Commander terrain, with another Blotz building. These are great to build during NBA games...particularly through the first 3 quarters while the Raptors are letting opponents build a small lead that they then overcome in an always-exciting 4th quarter. ;^)